Category: Ben Affleck

Think you know who Lindsay Shookus is? Well think again! Lindsay gave an explosive interview to Elle magazine (titled Who Is Lindsay Shookus) and revealed that she was raised by circus clowns and that she once ate an entire Piper Cub airplane on a dare! Oh, and she’s the one who did Ben Affleck’s tattoo (she has a matching one on her sternum). These are facts I wish I’d learned reading her interview. Sadly, they are not. They are facts I made up because the truth is; Lindsay’s kind of a snooze. If that’s what you thought you knew about Lindsay Shookus, then, my bad, you were right.

A brand-new Sad Ben Affleckmeme was born two weeks ago when Ben Affleck was photographed on a Hawaiian beach staring off pensively into the distance. He also happened to be shirtless, which gave us all a great view of his massive angry rainbow birds back tattoo, thus settling once and for all whether it was real or fake. Ben briefly tweeted about said tattoo, but it wasn’t to defend himself from his own terrible judgement. It was to defend himself against what he thought was a mean-spirited article by The New Yorker.

A week after the pictures hit the internet, The New Yorker wrote a piece called The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck. In it they joke that Ben’s gaze was “obscure and empty,” and that some might describe his outward-pooching gut as “Homer Simpsonesque.” Ben responded to The New Yorker’s story today by tweeting that he’s just fine.

I don’t mind this self-aware Ben Affleck, although I am a little surprised by how level-headed his response was. The New Yorker read Ben to filth. I honestly would have expected an Affleck revenge plot to involve Ben standing outside The New Yorker’s offices with little brother Casey, screaming, “Get out he-yah and say it to my face, ya facks!” while holding baseball bats, all tuned up on a case of Sam Adams.

After taking a vow of silence from opining on the important hot topics of the day, Matt Damon is dipping his toes in the waters of controversy once again by giving his honest and unfiltered opinion on one of the most important issues facing not just Hollywood but all of mankind: Ben Affleck’s back tattoo. Matt appeared on The Daily Show and Trevor Noah asked him if he was planning on distancing himself from his longtime bro because of his embarrassing ink. Matt answered (via Page Six):

“Unfortunately, I can’t seem to shake him — I’ve known him since I was 10, so that’s 37 years,” Damon said, adding, “I mean, it’s not one man’s job to tell another man what he can do to his back. I support him in all of his artistic expression.”

Some might call it a shady answer but Matt can barely cast a shadow let alone throw shade. Ben’s never cheated on Matt (as far as we know) so he doesn’t have any reason to not play nice, unlike Jennifer Garner who played kitty coy by licking her paw and purring “bless his heart” which is the only thing Jennifer’s ever said that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Despite what he says about a man’s back being his own or whatever, as Ben’s BFF, Matt is partially responsible for that mess. Ben’s always sticking his honey bear nose in pots he has no business in but refuses to step up to his responsibilities as a Ben handler. Matt blatantly ignored Ben’s peas for help. We all heard them yet were powerless to intervene. Maybe instead of fantasizing about being Thor’s neighbor in Australia, Matt should have focused his energies on the crisis here at home.

Remember Ben Affleck’s enormous “what am I even doing, why is nobody stopping me” phoenix rising from the ashes back tattoo that he told us was fake and for a movie? Turns out it was real. I think we all just got a little taste of what Jennifer Garner must have had to deal with for years; Ben Affleck lying straight to our faces!

Apparently some people in Hollywood were listening when Frances McDormand ended her acceptance speech at the Oscars to urge for the adoption of inclusion riders (basically, to ensure gender and racial equity on movie sets). Michael B. Jordan’s production company said that they were going to start using inclusion riders on all their projects. And according to The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have decided to do the same for future projects made through their production company, Pearl Street Films. I’m feeling generous, so I choose not to believe that was a choice Matt and Ben made after their publicists slipped them both a copy of How to Be a Little Less Problematic.

THR says that neither Matt nor Ben have commented on their stance on the inclusion rider. But I would say it’s probably one of the better decisions Pearl Street Films has made. Although that’s not exactly saying much, since they did make Live by Night, and I believe anything compared against that flop is automatically considered a good choice.

I’m sure Matt and Ben will be very committed to making sure their inclusion rider is as diverse as possible when they sit down and write it all out. There will be roles for women and people of color. But they can’t forget men, specifically their criminally underrepresented sub-demographic: white men with Boston accents. Although Matt and Ben probably don’t have to specify that they will always include Oscar winners with unshakeable sexual misconduct allegations. It just goes without saying that there will always be roles for Casey Affleck.

Rose McGowan’s E! docuseries Citizen Rose premiered last night, which means Harvey Weinstein, or “the monster” as she calls him, was bound to get a new batch of bad Google alerts. Harvey’s team attempted to do some damage control by digging through his email archives and found what they consider to be a conscience-clearing conversation with Ben Affleck.